KEY POINTS:
Ron McGregor, OBE, QSM. Rugby league leader. Died aged 83.
After an unfortunately brief playing career as a Kiwi, Ron McGregor embarked on a career in rugby league administration that made him an institution in the sport.
He was president of NZ Rugby League for 17 years from 1970 and secretary of the International Rugby League Federation for a decade.
Such details probably do not do justice to the man. We are now accustomed to having a professional and highly-paid Warriors team. And we are used to the luxury of being able to pick Kiwi teams for internationals solidly composed of professionals.
In 1972 McGregor described the game as "basically an amateur sport". And it was a sport which had to fight for its survival.
McGregor deplored the way secondary schools "deprived" teenagers of rugby league. In fact for many years most schools worshipped rugby and refused to field school league teams.
McGregor was also upset by a pompous NZ Broadcasting Corporation decision that there was too little public interest to warrant screening top overseas games.
Also in 1972 McGregor, a qualified accountant, was trying to balance figures from the recent Kiwi tour to Britain with complaints from the likes of the late prop and goalkicker Henry Tatana. Tatana's grievance was that as a married man with four children the loss of his waterside worker wages and expenses left him broke.
But McGregor pointed out that the Tatana family had received $1122 from the 100-day tour, more than anyone else "and he earned it, because he played very good football". Single players got less.
In fact, said McGregor, the allowances paid on that tour were greater than for any previous tour. The New Zealand league recognised the players were up against professionals and actually took a small loss on the tour.
In the event Tatana soon moved to professional league in Australia.
McGregor played for Auckland's Richmond Club as a boy and reached the Auckland team at 18 in 1942. In 1947 he went on the Kiwis tour to Britain and France. A brilliant centre, or wing, he played 23 times for New Zealand, including five tests, and scored 10 tries. But in a 1948 trial he broke his jaw, retired as a player and turned to administration.
At a packed St Matthew-in-the-City funeral service on Thursday a family friend, Governor-General Anand Satyanand, mentioned McGregor's enduring qualities as including courtesy, reliability and generosity.
